Intercloud or 'cloud of clouds.’ is a term refer to a theoretical model for cloud computing services based on the idea of combining many different individual clouds into one seamless mass in terms of on-demand operations. The intercloud would simply make sure that a cloud could use resources beyond its reach, by taking advantage of pre-existing contracts with other cloud providers.

1. Cloud of Clouds (Intercloud)
Intercloud or 'cloud of clouds.’ is a term refer to a theoretical model for cloud computing
services based on the idea of combining many different individual clouds into one seamless mass
in terms of on-demand operations. The intercloud would simply make sure that a cloud could use
resources beyond its reach, by taking advantage of pre-existing contracts with other cloud
providers.
The Intercloud scenario is based on the key concept that each single cloud does not have infinite
physical resources or ubiquitous geographic footprint. If a cloud saturates the computational and
storage resources of its infrastructure, or is requested to use resources in a geography where it
has no footprint, it would still be able satisfy such requests for service allocations sent from its
clients.
The Intercloud scenario would address such situations where each cloud would use the
computational, storage, or any kind of resource (through semantic resource descriptions, and
open federation) of the infrastructures of other clouds. This is analogous to the way the Internet
works, in that a service provider, to which an endpoint is attached, will access or deliver traffic

2. from/to source/destination addresses outside of its service area by using Internet routing
protocols with other service providers with whom it has a pre-arranged exchange or peering
relationship. It is also analogous to the way mobile operators implement roaming and inter-carrier
interoperability. Such forms of cloud exchange, peering, or roaming may introduce new
business opportunities among cloud providers if they manage to go beyond the theoretical
framework.
IBM researchers are working on a solution that they claim can seamlessly store and move data
across multiple cloud platforms in real time. The firm thinks that the technology will help
enterprises with service reliability concerns. On top of this, they hope to "cloud-enable" almost
any digital storage product.
Researchers at IBM have developed a “drag-and-drop” toolkit that allows users to move file
storage across almost any cloud platform. The company cloud would host identity authentication
and encryption technologies as well as other security systems on an external cloud platform (the
‘InterCloud Store’) to keep each cloud autonomous, while also keeping them synced together.
IBM Cloud of Clouds image credit: IBM Research
IBM’s Evangelos Eleftheriou explained that the cloud-of-clouds invention can help avoid service
outrages due to the fact it can tolerate crashes of any number of clients. It would do this using the
independence of multiple clouds linked together to increase overall reliability.
Storage services don’t communicate directly with each other but instead go through the larger
cloud for authentication. Data is encrypted as it leaves one station and decrypted before it
reaches the next. If one cloud happens to fail, a back-up cloud responds immediately.

3. The cloud-of-clouds is also intrinsically more secure: “If one provider gets hacked there is little
chance they will penetrate other systems at the same time using the same vulnerabilit y.”
Alessandro Sorniotti, cloud storage scientist at IBM and one of the researchers, says. “From the
client perspective, we will have the most available and secure storage system.”
HP and RedHat have also made offerings of similar kinds, Cisco will invest $1B in the next two
years to build its expanded cloud business, and we expect the incremental capabilities to expand
the true investment figure even further.
The Future?
Five years from now there will be a suite of international interoperability standards that will lead
to a cloud of clouds, or “inter-cloud,” a future where there will be tight integration between
multiple clouds. This tighter integration of clouds will have practical implications for businesses,
giving analysts the ability to sift through siloes of big data applications to make better informed
decisions, according to John Messina, a senior member with the National Institute of Standards
and Technology’s cloud computing program. Interoperability is much broader than an
organization or consumers talking with cloud providers, but also involves cloud providers
communicating with one another and those providers interconnecting with other resources such
as social media and sensor networks, Messina said.
NIST along with other international groups such as The Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers, the International Electrotechnical Commission, the International Standards
Organization and the TM Forum are pushing for interoperability and portability standards. “I
think there is a safe prediction that we will have much more interoperability in the future right
around the three- to five-year point. Probably closer to five, we will have that cloud of cloud
people are talking about,” Messina said.
Randy Garrett, program manager with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s
Information Innovation Office, who also was on the panel, said, “We will see a growth in the
Internet of Things,” referring to devices ranging from smart phones to automated sensors and
non-computing devices connected to the Internet.
An interconnected world has potential benefits, but it also creates new risks. For example, 10
years ago there was no danger that somebody could remotely take over your car with a
cyberattack. But a car today with onboard computers, a GPS receiver and wireless connections is
vulnerable. Someone can take over a car. They cannot steer it (unless we are talking about
Google’s driverless car), Garrett noted, but can do other things. “So when you take that
possibility and spread it out, it makes you wonder what type of future world we will have if
somebody can come in remotely change your heating or air conditioning or shut down your car”
Still, a lot of future benefits will arise as a result of connected devices and access to more
information such as the better tracking of the rise and spread of epidemics, a larger sampling of
medicines or the ability to detect manufacturing defects, Garrett said.

4. References
http://www.cloudcomputing-news.net/news/2013/dec/10/ibm-launches-cloud-clouds-offering-aims-stop-
vendor-lockin/
http://www.techopedia.com/definition/7756/intercloud
http://www.cloudwards.net/news/ibm-offers-intercloud-storage-2914/
http://www.techradar.com/us/news/internet/ibm-working-on-cloud-of-clouds-solution-to-limit-vendor-lock-
in-1207375#null
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercloud
http://gcn.com/Articles/2013/05/31/Cloud-of-clouds-5-years-in-future.aspx?Page=3#
http://www.themetisfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Segmenting-The-InterCloud.png
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